


i know what you did on that mountaintop

by biiitchofCambridge



Series: deuxième [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Blood Power Meta, Carver Hawke Being an Asshole, Depression, Distrusting Character, Gen, He's MY Asshole, Mel Does Not Let Anyone Have Their Own Autonomy In This One, Mommy Issues, Protective Big Sister, Protective Siblings, Self indulgent meta time, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Self-Sacrifice, Self-Worth Issues, Suicidal Tendencies, They Are Not Children Any Longer, Trauma, Vulnerability, Vulnerability? Don't Know Her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:46:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23656324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biiitchofCambridge/pseuds/biiitchofCambridge
Summary: She didn’t see the ogre coming.
Relationships: Bethany Hawke & Female Hawke, Carver Hawke & Female Hawke, Female Hawke & Male Hawke
Series: deuxième [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1703305
Comments: 10
Kudos: 4





	1. i. bloodletting

**Author's Note:**

> in my other work, [ they are not children any longer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23488267/chapters/56318596), I kept thinking about how they all managed to stay alive.

She didn’t see the ogre coming. 

She didn’t see it until it was in her peripheral vision and it was too late because Garrett, the fucking  _ moron _ , jumped out and—

Her brother’s chest bones crumpled like bird wings. He was gasping for life, for his lungs to inflate— he was grasping at air that he couldn’t take in, his tongue stretching and his eyes drying from the inside out. He was dying, and it was slow. Leandra was howling over his body, sobbing as her hands were covered in blood. 

Carver was beaten against the ground, like a rag doll by a frustrated child— his back was at an awkward angle, but his chest still struggled for breath, his eyes flashing this way and that. Bethany held his hand, sobbed at his panicking eyes and silent gulping— his back was broken, his brain smashed in too much to know what talking  _ was  _ anymore. 

Mel slid to her knees, saw Aveline ready her sword and shield as she stood at her dying Templar husband’s feet. She watched the dragon soar over in a daze; how she killed the ogre and turned into a woman in seconds. 

“Save them.” Mel barked immediately. Youth flashed in her eyes. “You’re a mage.” She remembers striving to the witch, holding her by her jerkin straps and shaking her.

“Why would I do that?” She asked. She learned her name was Flemeth;  _ Asha’Bellanar _ . 

“I’ll give you my life.” Mel said, “I’m willing to do whatever you want.”

Flemeth thought about that, if only for a moment. Her creepy gold eyes stared at Mel’s body— strong, grounding, sightly. She’d do it, in case of anything. Humouring fated heroes also shook the boat, so to speak— she enjoyed fucking with the cosmos. 

“Done,” she replied. Garrett’s chest popped back into place, Carver’s back straightened. The boys laid on the ground, dazed and forgetting. Leandra cried harder over Garrett’s body, pressed over his healed body with shaky hands. Bethany jumped up in horror, stumbled to Mel and fell into her arms. She passed out; Flemeth sighed, rolled her eyes.

“They’ll all forget.” Flemeth decided. “Except for her; we need a witness to our agreement.” She nodded to a terrified Aveline. Carver’s spine snapping into place was still ringing in her ears. 

“Do I need to sign something? Blood sacrifice a cow?” Mel scoffed. 

“No,” Flemeth replied. “You‘ll convince your brothers to do something for me, and I’ll come to collect the day I need you.”

“When will that be?” Mel swallowed. 

“The day you reach the Beyond,” Flemeth replied as if it were obvious. 

Aveline watched in horror as Mel ripped her sleeve off, let the Witch of the Wilds carve a sigil into her arm, sealed it into a silvery scar. She licked the blood clean from her arm and pressed a red kiss to Mel’s mouth, beckoned Aveline closer. She took her by her shirt and kissed her, too. 

“What--” She said, stumbling back. Whatever ache she had in her belly was gone. Her mortality was set in stone.

“You witnessed it,” The Witch sneered, her golden eyes hungry like a starving barn cat’s.

When the boys awoke, they watched the exchange between the women. Mel looked sickly, but she pushed for the passage to Amaranthine. Her lips were bloody but there was no cut; Carver thought that as odd. Mel moved with power in her limbs but they did not match her face.

“He will not survive the trip,”  _ Asha’Bellanar _ said. 

“You can’t—” Aveline has tears in her eyes. 

“My magic cannot extend over  _ this. _ ” The Witch replied matter-of-factly. 

Aveline’s husband was near ghoulish. Mel shoved the knife into his chest and Garrett torched his body so the darkspawn could not have his body.

Flemeth took them to Amaranthine. Mel rubbed at the scar. It still aches on days when she laughs too much.

__

When she is in Kirkwall and is bleeding, she can feel her bones weaken. Her life is shortened with each cut. She knows this. She still puts herself in front of the blade that would’ve maimed Carver. With each cut he gains, she watches his eyes grow sicker; she can see different things now, too-- watches the souls of bad men leave in a silvery flit in the corner of her eye, watches the good ones go in a burst of gold sparks. Carver shines in alabaster in the dark of her eyelids. The Fade teases her of his weak lifeline, so fragile and frail. Mel can hear the demons gather near him, watch as they leech at the idea of him. She sneaks an anti-Fade rune into his pillow when he’s out; her dreams howl, his lifeline still that alabaster column. But with every bad dream and bloodletting of her own ichor, she watches his grow in strength.  _ This is the sacrifice we must make.  _ She knows he worries over her, knows those scared looks when she’s pretending to sleep. Mel still throws herself in front of the blades that come to collect his soul, and she knows she will die young like her father.

And it does not stop her in the slightest.

__

She hates how Garrett does blood magic. He is shortening the life she fought so hard for, but she does not tell him to stop. She knows of power, and she knows of death; it’s a righteous tug that he pulls against well. He uses his ichor as a tool and is smart enough to know that he will probably die young, too. He burns like an inferno in Mel’s head-- Garrett is not warm-blooded, however. He is cool under pressure, reacting only when the storm stirs long enough.

Mel cannot protect him from his dreams, that taunt him of his horrible, hissing almost-death that he does not remember or understand. When he awakens in the early morning, Mel watches him groan and rub his face in his bunk. She pats her dog’s muzzle amiably and steels herself; she’d tell him if she could trust that a demon wouldn’t tear into his guilt and raise his body as its own.

She loves Garrett, but she does not trust him with his own volition.


	2. ii. soulsmiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’d sign her soul over thrice-fold every time she got to help him with his hair, every time she got to punch him in a scrap, every time she got to go to work with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a temp job so i won't be updating as frequently, but I hope to continue posting as I've got a fair amount already drafted!

She was laying in bed once when Bethany asked. It was the coldest night Mel had felt in a long time and she decided to crawl into her spot of their bunk for once. She was wearing her sleeveless tunic and shorts, the blankets pulled up to her chest with her bare arms out. Mel slept flat on her back and was moments from precious slumber.

“What’s this scar from?” Bethany whispered. She touched it; Mel felt lightning zing into her bones. She slapped Bethany’s hand from her arm, something she’d  _ never  _ done before. She had never once struck Bethany, not even when she was small. She was slapping Carver around when he tugged her hair too hard in their wrestling-- she was fighting for her sister since day one.

“Nothin’,” Mel sniffed. She rolled over. Bethany laid flat on her back.

“It looks like scarification. I was reading a book Merrill let me borrow about human clans, as she called them,” she sighed. “There’s one called the Orth. They have facial scarification. It’s a mark of honour and beauty.” She yawned.

Mel turned toward her, her face sat on her fist. Her hair was braided back and wrapped in a piece of stolen silk against her skull. She had freckles danced all over her face. Bethany was reminded of how pretty her sister was.

“Tell me of the Chasind,” she asked. Bethany shot into information. She was a scholar, through and through. Eventually, she laid her ear over Mel’s heart and fell asleep, her hair tucked into a bonnet. Mel could smell the oil she put in her curls, the lavender and vanilla she rubbed behind her ears to smell good. 

When Mel sleeps, flat on her back like she’s dead, she hears the whispers. She hears ghosts in her head, little hisses at her ears when she’s quiet or thinking too much. But these voices take shape of a dragon, of a blight rat, of a strong woman with horns--

_ “You’re too attached to your reality to see the Beyond,” _

_ “You are anti-matter to your brother— he does the impossible every day, you maintain the real and true. Is that your greatest power or worst setback?” _

_ “You owe me your life, but how will you live it? Safely?” _

_ “Marianne Amelia Hawke. A beautiful name. Will it be on the tongues of salvation-incarnate, or sinners-be-damned? What do you choose?” _

_ “The Taint claims your family, except you. I wonder why? It lies dormant. What will awaken it?” _

_ “Once you are in the Beyond, you are mine.” _

_ “You couldn’t save them from an ogre, how will you save them from the Knight-Commander’s brand? _

__

She and Bethany are looking for the document in the Hightown Mansion; the boys have pissed off upstairs to make sure they didn’t miss anything; secretly, Mel thinks its just Garrett just trying to get her to talk to someone else besides Carver.

“Why won’t you talk about that scar? It’s pretty, whatever it is,” Bethany complimented.

_ How much sadder would she be? How much would she have to take in this life because you can’t shield her from it? _

“She broke my heart,” Mel half-lied. Asha’Bellanar really broke her heart, in some ways.

“She must’ve meant a lot to you,” Bethany said, peeking into some boxes. She was on her tippy toes and looked like she was five years old again, just in that light.

“I’m only reminded sometimes how much she helped me,” Mel laughed awkwardly as she rubbed her scar. It burned whenever she grew nervous.

“How did she help you?” Bethany asked.

Mel thought of the noise Carver’s back made as it mended. She thought of how Garrett’s chest popped back into place, how it inflated. How her Mother laid her head on Garrett’s chest and howled like she was dying. She tasted blood in her mouth, released her molars from her gooey cheek.

“I don’t want--” Mel huffed, then stopped. “Let’s just find the papers and leave.”

Mel pretended not to see the disappointed face Bethany shot in her direction.

__

Carver gets her to loop his curls when they get sad and droopy or too kinky-curly to do anything with other than huff at his undefined mass of hair.

“You need to stop wearing a helmet so much,” Mel said as she tugged on his ear to make him sit up. He straightened.

“Andraste, just cut it. I want it off.” He grumbled. Mel made a disappointed noise with her lips.

“No, I’m looping it and you’ll start using that silk pillowcase I stole for you,” she half-threatened. “Asshole.” She added. The neighbours waved; Carver waved back and Mel sent a less angry expression their way. Dust blew across the front step.

“I hate silk, my head slides off the pillow,” Carver complained. Mel sniffed and pulled impatiently on his hair. He made an annoyed noise in the back of his head.

“Mum’s nicer on my scalp than you,” he complained.

“And my finger loops last more than a day,” Mel fired back as she wrapped his hair around another small stick. She had half his fat head done and her hands were starting to cramp.

“You’re lucky your curls are looser,” he grumped, hissed at the tugging.

“Ah, yes, but yours are  _ much  _ prettier,” she teased, making her voice go up and light. She was telling the truth, however. Carver had the best head of hair and took the worst care of it.

“Are you almost done?” He asked.

Mel tugged his earlobe in response. He straightened again.

She’d sign her soul over thrice-fold every time she got to help him with his hair, every time she got to punch him in a scrap, every time she got to go to work with him. Her and Garrett were a unit, loyal and relying; but her and Carver? Best friends. He was what kept her from burning the whole world down to the ground, starting with the Gallows.

When she finishes his hair, he’s asleep on his own chest. Mel does not move.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whenever I play as Mel on DA2 I try to picture my other Hawke's and Carver (since she's a Warrior, she has Bethany) with her on a mission, and lemme tell you-- she would 100% always have Carver with her. I can't explain why, but she 100% would.


	3. iii. the day she touched the Beyond

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why do you try to convince everyone that you are broad when you are small?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> enjoyyyyy

Carver writes her a letter once he’s gotten in. How he managed to, Mel doesn’t ask. She knows the Templars hate her, and they know she still kills them for money and sometimes for sport. And they don’t touch her because they  _ need  _ her, and they hate her for it. Mel hates them for stealing her sister and providing Carver with a reason not to come home, and that’ll always ache more. 

He was taught well by his oldest sister, his oldest friend. He hates her sometimes, hates how much tougher she is and how much more menacing she appears to be; but he adores her, too. Loves it when she talks him up, loves it when she encourages him to  _ go after that girl, Carv, she’s a piece I wouldn’t let fuck off, _ loves that she never calls him dumb or a sword arm. He can’t read well-- the words tangling themselves into circles when he tries to read, it’s almost embarrassing watching him squint at the page in confusion. But she pats his shoulder, pronounces the word wrong on purpose to make him feel smart. She doesn’t hug him because she doesn’t really like hugs, but she musses his hair and pulls on the thin skin of his arms and he takes that as affection.

He says the fellas are giving him a hard time, but he shoulders it like the soldier like that. When he’s finally allowed to come back home, his eyes are busted black and bluer-- his eyes, irritated red scleras wreathed around his clear blue irises, were near pits of despair. Mel doesn’t hug him, but she grips his forearms and forces the names from his lips. He makes her promise she won’t do anything, but you can’t keep the Templar Killer from doing what she does best.

When he returns to the barracks three days later, the four men that beat the shit out of him are limping and scuffing and groaning with each move. One’s arm is broken-- he was the one who fractured Carver’s wrist in a  _ training accident.  _ He feels satisfaction, but he’s annoyed with her. When will she trust that he planned on knocking them down, one by one? Who does she think taught him how to fisticuff like a damned demon?

__

**_Why would you risk bringing a life into this world that you cannot control, however hard you try?_ **

Mel hears like a whisper over her shoulder. She doesn’t bother to turn and look.

**_What will it take before Carver’s killed at practice in an accident because of your fear? How long will it be before Bethany is desecrated and forced to carry a Templar son before it is ripped from her arm and womb as violently as it was created?_ **

She wonders if sometimes she’s the ones conjuring up these voices. They always cut so deeply.

**_How will you keep Anders from going too far?_ **

_ He knows his limits,  _ she thinks back. The silence following confirms her doubt.

**_Why would Merrill ever choose you?_ **

_ Because she loves me, _ Mel thinks. There is no doubt now.

**_How do you expect to keep Isabela if she wouldn’t even stay for your newborn son?_ **

_ We all need our space. _ Mel thought. She waited for the last jab.

**_Why do you try to convince everyone that you are broad when you are small?_ **

__

As she lays dying, she looks up at Merrill’s eyes. They are bright green, owlish as always and furious in their determined abandon-- she  _ will save you, vhenan, don’t go to the Beyond just yet, we have a family to raise! _ Mel can taste death; it is achy sweet and smells like the harbour. She feels watery light, floating into some forgotten sea just beyond her eyelids. She knows that she’s going to die, that her children will have one less mother— but she saved her siblings, she kept Merrill happy for a time and Isabela safe for a time, too. She feels Isabela’s calluses on her hands, feels the disembodied voice steal her vocal cords. When she sees it, it’s blood. It’s gore. She closes her eyes. 

_ Time to see Mother and Father,  _ she thinks. 

But her tongue dries, the fight filling up her lungs with burning acid. The world is collapsing on her— the sea is shitty Fereldan slush and she smells iron, Isabela’s skin, Carver’s sweat. There are arms around her, there is blood running down her face like the soft dew of a wary spring sky. She tastes it— it tastes like a curse prolonged. Mel always did love agony. 

She looks to her brother and sees golden sparks, one by one, from the corner of her all-seeing eyes. Carver is failing. She escaped the noose and it falls to the next most bled of the Hawke line. She thinks to the swords she could not parry, the bloody gashes she could not mend with her own flesh. She hefts him over her powerful shoulders, sees nothing but grey and red and gold— Carver’s beautiful life is fading and Mel is angry. 

There is nothing she wouldn’t do for him, she knows. Knows it like the way the sky will peak every morning, like Merrill’s laugh when Isabela grabs her ticklish knees, like how Malachai can understand  _ shit  _ and  _ no _ and  _ dinner _ from the mouth, like how Garrett will always be everyone’s favourite, like how she will always be too much and never enough and—

Carver is heavy. But Mel has always been strong. She took down an ogre, didn’t she?

__

Carver writes her another letter. She is pregnant with her daughter Rishara, knows that she is due soon. She found her first grey hair the other day, too. She figures it’s a sign that her worry is over, if only for a moment. 

Carver writes that he is well and that he is seeing a woman. She is Orlesian, and Mel cackles at that. He is a Warden, a damn good one, and that he kills ogres all by himself. Mel thinks that she will tell him what she did if she ever sees him again. But with the babe in her belly and another in Merrill‘s, she doesn’t chance the trip. So she pens a letter back, tells him she’s proud of him and that she loves him and that she’s carrying a niece for him to come visit. 

Mel can smell his cologne on the leaf. She smells it, thinks of how she used to rock him to sleep when she was little in his little wooden cradle by the fire. She used to pat his head and let him suck her finger pruney-sogged. She knows he’ll do the same to her children if given the chance. 

“Come sign your names, babies,” Mel calls softly. The kids-- their kids-- march over to the table and one-by-one sign the parchment. Malachai adds hearts, Vara draws a little flower, Leander doodles a scribble for his signature. He isn’t school age yet, but the older he gets, the more he looks like Carver.  _ Soon, _ Mel thinks,  _ I’ll be looking up at my son.  _

But she still hears the whispers, still sees the sparks, still sees am ever-raging burning red when she’s in battle, in blood. She does not climb mountains with Merrill, and she avoids the docks, even when Bela begs her. The rocks and the sea serve too much for her, and she’s sitting in limbo until she can summon her courage.

But she’s sparking out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what y'all think?

**Author's Note:**

> self-hatred sucks booty, stream Gay Street Fighter :)


End file.
